[IN] Provence - The Rightful Kings of France

[Chief Ragusa]

Exactly! I'm whatever I say I am!

With 50.000 Imperial cavalry to back you up ... absolutely anything.

Since you've reached the goal of your AAR, to become Kings of France, I am wondering what ... is next.

The ghost of Charlemagne, of Caesar (nope done that) of Justinian of Alexander beckon or will the great Provencal Empire simply be at peace?

[Didaa]

Well as he said in the first post

I drafted a set of goals:
1.) Dominate trade to get money.
2.) Break the vassalage from France without getting killed instantly.
3.) Ally with France and use her shamelessly.
4.) Become Holy Roman Emperor
5.) Destroy and annex France.
6.) Form France.

1. I think eh alerady done it
2. Done
3. Done
4. Done
5. Done
6. Done

Now what is Naggy next step, destroy Great Britan??
Colonize the New World?
Go revolutionary?

[naggy]

As a warning, I'm 5 GB from exceeding my Photobucket bandwidth limit, which resets on the 25th...so do not be surprised if my AAR goes screenshot-less for a couple of days.

[Zeval31]

Go revolutionary?

how do you "go Revolutionnary" ?
Is there a special national decision ? or is that a series of event like the reformation thing ?

[naggy]

how do you "go Revolutionnary" ?
Is there a special national decision ? or is that a series of event like the reformation thing ?

I'll have to look at the French Revolution chain, but it would take many years to get to the appropriate tech level.

[t0m]

As a warning, I'm 5 GB from exceeding my Photobucket bandwidth limit, which resets on the 25th...so do not be surprised if my AAR goes screenshot-less for a couple of days.

Switch to imageshack and keep the photobucket account, or just make a new photobucket account, it would be a shame to lose your pictures.

[naggy]

Rather than go for a WC, or try and play nice in Europe (neither of which fit the original theme of the AAR), or try to find new interesting goals (when I'm already beating half of Europe down with ease), I think I'll wrap up the AAR and let it end here.

Some observations:
* Defections should not occur within union cultures, or should be a lot harder. Accepted cultures should also be less likely to defect. Meath defecting from GB makes far more sense than Aberdeen defecting from GB or Gascogne defecting from France.
* The HR Emperor should not be able to use Proclaim Guarantee on Imperial states. It's a free 10 relations and an annual relationship boost for doing something that they already do as emperor.
* The AI should use coalitions (where allied armies link up and move/work together). It's way too easy to fight 10 disjointed countries fighting on their own. Had alliances combined forces and worked together, I may well have lost a couple of wars.
* Cavalry reinforces too quickly.
* Non-core CoTs probably should not give a colonist bonus. It's absurd that conquering a CoT in July would increase the number of colonists available in August.

Things I might have done differently:
* I should not have vassalized France. I should have let GB eat France, and then taken the province from GB.
* I should not have allied with Savoy once I was strong enough not to need them. While they were helpful in the war with Aragon and Portugal, they completely locked me out from any gains.
* Defections are useful, but later on when I had France beat cold, I probably should have peaced out quicker.
* I should not have moved more towards Free Trade in the beginning, since it hampered my ability to knock everyone out of my own CoT's once I got monopolies. By that point, I couldn't trade anywhere else even with Free Trade 5.

Thank you to all of you that followed and commented on the AAR. I'll come up with some new idea soon and start a new AAR...

[Alfred Packer]

Nicely done! (and I applaud your restraint - you set your goals and reached them!)

Now start another one

[Serus]

"WC with Maledives - greatest insanity ever ?". I follow Rastar AAR and there is a very good chance he will succed, so a more dfficult one would be nice to see. Maledives is just a random idea, maybe Ceylon ?
I also rarely see any AARs started at later dates (late 1500s or 1600s) i would like to read one. No more cavalry only armies, an AAR with infantry ruling the battlefields would be nice.

[Didaa]

Well you did very well.
I think you did right, you already had accomplished your starting objectives.
I'll be waiting for another one of yours soon

[Chief Ragusa]

Nicely done! (and I applaud your restraint - you set your goals and reached them!)

Now start another one

I concur and seconded!

[Rastar]

Rather than go for a WC, or try and play nice in Europe (neither of which fit the original theme of the AAR), or try to find new interesting goals (when I'm already beating half of Europe down with ease), I think I'll wrap up the AAR and let it end here.

Some observations:
* Defections should not occur within union cultures, or should be a lot harder. Accepted cultures should also be less likely to defect. Meath defecting from GB makes far more sense than Aberdeen defecting from GB or Gascogne defecting from France.
* The HR Emperor should not be able to use Proclaim Guarantee on Imperial states. It's a free 10 relations and an annual relationship boost for doing something that they already do as emperor.
* The AI should use coalitions (where allied armies link up and move/work together). It's way too easy to fight 10 disjointed countries fighting on their own. Had alliances combined forces and worked together, I may well have lost a couple of wars.
* Cavalry reinforces too quickly.
* Non-core CoTs probably should not give a colonist bonus. It's absurd that conquering a CoT in July would increase the number of colonists available in August.

Things I might have done differently:
* I should not have vassalized France. I should have let GB eat France, and then taken the province from GB.
* I should not have allied with Savoy once I was strong enough not to need them. While they were helpful in the war with Aragon and Portugal, they completely locked me out from any gains.
* Defections are useful, but later on when I had France beat cold, I probably should have peaced out quicker.
* I should not have moved more towards Free Trade in the beginning, since it hampered my ability to knock everyone out of my own CoT's once I got monopolies. By that point, I couldn't trade anywhere else even with Free Trade 5.

Thank you to all of you that followed and commented on the AAR. I'll come up with some new idea soon and start a new AAR...

Very nice AAR, and proved something something pretty impressive...that it was possible for a France vassal to take down the BBB.

On the defections, I don't know whether they are too easy or you just had a good set of rolls that game. I have done tests on defection rate as well as looked at the math in the decisions, and none of the outcomes I have seen are anywhere close to what you experienced. Other than that one point, I like all your conclusions.

[naggy]

On the defections, I don't know whether they are too easy or you just had a good set of rolls that game. I have done tests on defection rate as well as looked at the math in the decisions, and none of the outcomes I have seen are anywhere close to what you experienced. Other than that one point, I like all your conclusions.

Apparently, the MTTH modifiers aren't correctly coded, so the lucky tag didn't affect defections (or so someone said in the bug report forums - I yield to their modding experience).

A defection strategy works best if you can sit on several defectable provinces. Otherwise, it's almost certainly a waste of time. Another strategy (which I used) was to sit on someone who would otherwise stab you in the back while you deal with another war.

[Rastar]

A defection strategy works best if you can sit on several defectable provinces. Otherwise, it's almost certainly a waste of time.

Certainly agree. If the country is small, the odds would be too low.


Your AAR has me thinking about new strategies for blob destruction. You could peace out quickly in the first couple wars when province cost is cheap and ONLY take provinces that are same-culture as the capital. Then in later wars you could sit on them for a while, and a much larger percentage of the provinces would therefore be eligible for defection.


This strategy could work particularly well if the blob has at least one little ally (France and Cyprus come to mind). If you DOW Cyprus and peace them out early, you effectively have the truce clock ticking on France while sitting on all their provinces hoping for a defection.

[Malurous]

Yeah, great AAR! Just finished reading. Quite an accomplishment forming France like that, some tricks there that I'll have to stuff up my own sleeve too... Plus it was an interesting read, with more broad explanations and humour and less battle screenshots. I think the approach worked really well.

And I think it's a good decision to stop when you've accomplished what you set out to do. Looking forward to your next AAR!

[aldriq]

Thank you to all of you that followed and commented on the AAR. I'll come up with some new idea soon and start a new AAR...

Good conclusion. Looking forward to a new AAR!

[Inner Circle]

great AAR naggy, great AAR, from a vassalized TPM to an Empire... impressive!

Maybe you should play in your next AAR an OPM or TPM like Provence which can form a bigger nation...?

[Montague]

Very nice, I like the way you ended the game when you met the goals.

My suggestion for your next adventure would be to play whatever country the munchkin "tells" you to play. (kind of like a magic 8-ball, just ask which ones are acceptable until you get smiles....also can add to the decision-making in game too "What do you think, National Bank or QFtNW?")

[Reingleif]

Very good AAR, congratulations. You surely are very experienced in the game, not only in warfare, but you also handled diplomacy very well throughout the whole game Congratulations again!

[naggy]

Rastar: You can also put a ring around the capital and make them move it (like you did with Ming, and I did with France). The only threat there is that they may do Cultural Shift.

Malurous: Thank you! To me, battle screenshots get tedious, unless there's something specific to show/say.

aldriq: Thanks! My CoT AAR should be interesting. I'm not sure I can pull it off.

Inner Circle: Thanks...but I wanted something different. Maybe next time - I was thinking of trying Navarra.

Montague: EU3 is all about setting your own goals, but the missions can help you steer those goals about.

Reingleif: I learn a lot from reading AARs and the forums. I find that you can easily double your efficiency at the game at mastering finding the limits and pushing them. Of course, you can also easily lead yourself to ruin if you get unlucky, careless, or overexposed.